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Greena I That Manager In The Middle

@thatmanagerinthemiddle

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Engineering| Management| Parenthood.
Doing it all. Figuring it out as I go.
EM @ Amazon | ex Goldman Sachs | ex Oracle
↓ Writing the SOP for this life

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Nobody is going to frame this garden. Zero Pinterest energy. But everything in here is thriving.

A makeshift fence to keep the deer out. Beds made from fence pickets. Not pretty. But they hold soil. That is all they need to do. Then I just kept adding. The next right thing done when it needed to be done.

And look at it now!!!

Long beans, tomatoes, chilli, eggplant, chards, squash, watermelon, mint, sage, oregano, parsley, lavender. All of it growing like crazy.

For your next work project, your next personal goal, or whatever you have been sitting on — start with the bare minimum. Then keep adding. That is not cutting corners. That is how things actually get built.

It does not have to be pretty to work. It just has to work.

Follow for more from the garden and everything it teaches me. 🌱

#thatmanagerinthemiddle #vegetablegarden #growyourown #gardenlife #buildanyway by @thatmanagerinthemiddle

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3 months ago

Not a football post. Bear with me.

Like so many people I am a fan of Ronaldo. But not for the reasons most people are.

If someone handed you his exact plan, the diet, the training, the sleep schedule, could you do it? Most of us could follow a plan. But would you? Every single day. When you are tired. When nobody is watching.

That is the actual question.

The plan was never the hard part. The dedication, the commitment, the discipline every single step of the way. That was the hard part.

Consistency is not a talent. It is a decision.

That is available to everyone. Including you.

Who does this remind you of in your world? I would love to know. 👇

#thatmanagerinthemiddle #cr7 #cristianoronaldo #consistency #careeradvice by @thatmanagerinthemiddle

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3 months ago

Built my son a sand box this weekend.

Materials: one Home Depot delivery packing sheet, some leftover 2x4s and a handful of nails. Total cost: whatever the renovation already cost.

No plan. No kit. Just figured it out as I went.

Turns out that is also a management lesson. You do not wait for perfect conditions. You build with what you have. And the best people learn to build anyway.

Sand box is done. My son is happy. That works for me.

P.S. I have a whole new level of respect for people who pick up power tools with zero experience and just go for it. Absolute legends, the lot of them. 🔨

Save this for the next time you are waiting for the right conditions. They are not coming. Build anyway. 👇

#thatmanagerinthemiddle #momlife #diysandbox #buildanyway #careerguidance by @thatmanagerinthemiddle

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3 months ago

One of the biggest mistakes I made in my career when I started. And honestly I think I would still be doing it if I had not read about it.

Sheryl Sandberg calls it do not leave before you leave.
I lived it. Now I watch others do it. And I get it. I really do. But keep doing what you always do. Stay in it. Until life actually asks something different from you.

Do not leave before you leave. Not a day before.

Has this been you? I would love to know. 👇

#thatmanagerinthemiddle #leanin #leanibook #womenintech #careeradvice by @thatmanagerinthemiddle

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4 months ago

Closing the laptop is the easy part.

WFH days though? No commute. No natural break. Just you, the sofa and Slack going "oh I will just quickly check this one thing."

Yeah. We know how that ends.

So now I make the gap happen. Every day. On purpose. Walk, run, workout, does not matter. During that time work just does not exist.

And honestly by the time I am done something has shifted. I am just here. Actually present.

If you do not make that gap yourself you never really leave work. You just carry it around wondering why you are exhausted by 8pm.

Sound familiar? Save this for the next time you end up back on Slack ten minutes after closing the laptop. We have all been there. 👇

#thatmanagerinthemiddle #wfhlife #worklifebalance #corporatemillennial #systemsthinking by @thatmanagerinthemiddle

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4 months ago

Spent my Saturday building supports for my tomato plants. Nothing glamorous. Just me, some twine and a handful of bamboo sticks.
But somewhere in the middle of it I realised. I'm not actually growing this plant. I'm just building what it needs to grow itself.
And that's the difference between doing it for your team and actually mentoring them.
When you do it for them they need you for everything. Forever. And you never get to do your actual job.
But when you build them up, teach them, guide them, let them figure it out,they get capable. They stop needing you for the small stuff.
And suddenly you both have room to operate at the right level. Them doing their job. You doing yours.

That's when it clicks.

Save this. Share it with a manager who needs it. And follow for more from the garden and the office. 🍅

#thatmanagerinthemiddle #gardenlife #leadership #mentoring #theanalogy by @thatmanagerinthemiddle

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4 months ago

You can't have it all. Stop trying.

Not because you're not capable. But because your brain can genuinely only focus on 3 to 5 things at a time. Beyond that you're not doing everything — you're doing everything badly.

So pick your core priorities. The ones that if they suffer — everything suffers. Give those most of your time and energy. Not some of it. Most of it.

And here's the part nobody mentions — your ranking shifts with the season you're in. When I was chasing a promotion the hobbies went quiet. When my son was small everything shifted around him. Now things are stable and I have room again.
Same life. Different season. Different ranking.

Everything else tags along when there's room. When there isn't — let it go. Without guilt.

My plants have withered. My fitness has paused. My content has gone quiet. Not because I failed — because my core priorities were on fire and they needed me more.

That's not dropping the ball. That's knowing which ball to drop.
We're all in different seasons. What's yours looking like right now? I'd love to know. 👇

#thatmanagerinthemiddle #priorities #seasonoflife #corporatemillennial #intentionalliving by @thatmanagerinthemiddle

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5 months ago

Standing out on your team is embarrassingly simple.

Not smarter. Not louder. Not more political.
Say you'll do something. Do it. On time. Every single time.

That's it. That's the whole thing.

Look around your team and count how many people actually do this consistently. That number is why the bar is where it is.
Consistency isn't a skill. It's a decision.

Are you that person? Drop a ✅ below.

#thatmanagerinthemiddle #engineeringmanager #careeradvice #techleadership #corporatemillennial by @thatmanagerinthemiddle

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5 months ago

Things I stopped saying as a manager. And what I actually do instead.

Because words without systems are just nice intentions.

The open door nobody walks through. The offer nobody takes up. The trust that feels like abandonment. The visibility advice that means nothing without opportunity.

I stopped saying all of it. Started doing it instead.

Which one hit? 👇
.
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#thatmanagerinthemiddle #engineeringmanager #leadershiplessons #techleadership #womenintech by @thatmanagerinthemiddle

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5 months ago

Motivation is great. Until it's 6am on a Wednesday and you have absolutely none.

These are the 5 small systems that run my week quietly in the background — so I don't have to rely on feeling ready.

Freezer blocks. Decision batching. Forced transitions. Calendar blocking. One completely unscheduled day.
None of them are glamorous. Future me is always grateful. Present me barely notices the extra effort.

Which one are you stealing first? Drop it below 👇

#thatmanagerinthemiddle #weeklyreset #systemsthinking #wfhlife #corporatemillennial by @thatmanagerinthemiddle

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5 months ago

Nobody posts the messy middle. Here's mine.

Weeds, chaos, one very determined kid in a yellow vest.
We let it go too long. We cleared it anyway.
Because you can't grow anything worth having in cluttered ground — gardens, goals, or otherwise.

Was it pretty? No. Did stuff grow? Also not yet. But the ground is ready now. 🌱

#thatmanagerinthemiddle #gardenlife #messymiddle #personalgrowth #corporatemillennial taken in New Jersey, USA by @thatmanagerinthemiddle

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5 months ago

I've been on both sides of this conversation. Waiting to be noticed. And being the manager who didn't notice enough. Neither felt good.

The difference between people who grow and people who stall is rarely talent. It's usually who made their goals visible — and who assumed someone else was tracking it.

I want to promote the people on my team. But I need them to show me where they want to go.

Next 1:1 — say the thing. Then drop a 🙋 below. I want to know.

#thatmanagerinthemiddle #engineeringmanager #careeradvice #techleadership #corporatemillennial by @thatmanagerinthemiddle

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5 months ago